Jan. 6, 2017, 3:22 p.m.

SEE IF THIS CAMPAIGN TACTIC sounds familiar: Rally white men who feel the world is changing too fast, leverage racial bias for the cause, and demean women along the way.

The strategy belonged to a radical corner of the gaming world that may have provided the winning playbook for the campaign that won the presidential election.

“Gamergate” is the term now used to describe the movement in which Internet trolls attacked high-profile people in the game industry if they attempted to change — or even speak out about — the misogynistic themes of video games. They are the gaming world’s radical right, and they’re fighting back against what they see as the onslaught of politically correct culture.

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Jan. 7, 2017, 8:40 a.m.

I've lived and traveled many places in the U.S. Not only is Hollywood out of touch, so is most of urban California. Both exist in a bubble. A place where insular thought feeds on one another. The only difference Hollywood has over most other places is they have been historically given a bully pulpit to speak from. One of the takeaways from The Donald's election is a repudiation of this stage. A formal rejection that a large part of America is tired of the Clooneys of the world telling us how to think and upbraiding us for daring to hold beliefs different than their fascist view of the world.

Finally the news narrative of overcovering those incredulous sky is falling anti-Donaldites were never explored when a freshman senator with almost NO real world work experience who won a Nobel peace prize within one year of election was voted into office. That double standard speaks directly to how out of touch the Hollywood Liberal California 'industrial complex' really is.

IN FALL 2009, BARELY A YEAR into the Great Recession, two new family sitcoms aired back-to-back on Wednesday nights: “The Middle” and “Modern Family.”

Filmed in a quasi-mockumentary style, “Modern Family” followed three affluent, interrelated families in suburban Los Angeles, including a gay couple with an adopted daughter from Vietnam. Praised for its diversity, it was instantly anointed the best new sitcom on television, became a ratings smash for ABC and has been nominated for 77 Emmys.

THE YEAR 2016 WAS PERHAPS the strongest yet for Hollywood depictions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. They’re not just comic relief anymore.

Consider Rutina Wesley’s bisexual Nova on OWN’s “Queen Sugar,” Erica Ash’s lesbian M-Chuck on Starz’s LeBron James-produced “Survivor’s Remorse,” the transgender fashion models of Oxygen’s reality show “Strut,” and the boy-to-man protagonist Chiron, who grapples with his sexuality in Barry Jenkins’ Golden Globe-nominated “Moonlight.” These are just a few of the LGBT characters populating some of the best films and TV shows Hollywood has to offer.

But producer, writer and director Patrik-Ian Polk, one of many LGBT people in the industry, is uncertain how the administration of President-elect Donald Trump will affect Hollywood and the recent increase in more varied representations of — and opportunities for — the LGBT community.

Jan. 7, 2017, 8:44 a.m.

I love Hollywood, but it's NOT REAL. It's a fantastical playland. They are out of touch with the real world most of us have to deal with every day. They're so focused on fringe minority issues they're missing the BIG picture and hundreds of thousands of people are broke, have no hope for a better future, and are being punished under a corrupt president and horrible Congress. There's a stage for the LGBT issues ... but it should NOT be the No. 1 priority above all else when people are literally starving and being homeless. They're oblivious to what's going on elsewhere ... or just don't care. But, that's the laughable thing here.... Hollywood creates FICTION. They're not SUPPOSED to really be reflecting the real world. They're supposed to be creating fun fiction that we can escape our little lame lives for a time. So, the sheer fact of them thinking THEY should be dictating how laws and government is run from THEIR perspective is too funny.

WHEN DONALD TRUMP WON the 2016 presidential election, the responses — especially from those who voted for Hillary Clinton, double-especially from those white men who voted Democrat — ran the gamut, from shock to awe to fear before landing, eventually, on anger.

They began railing about injustice to anyone who would listen. “How could this happen? How could forces unseen [to them] and unfelt [again, to them] result in such catastrophe?”

Occasionally, those flummoxed white men would turn to a black friend and say, “Do you believe this?”

WHEN A COLLEAGUE SHARED a British tabloid report that Donald Trump was considering appointing a certain Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone as head of the National Endowment for the Arts we rolled our eyes, speechless.

Stallone has since said he would decline any offer for the top arts spot from Trump. Yet — and I can’t believe I am saying this — Sly Stallone may not have been such a bad idea for the NEA after all.

IN EARLY DECEMBER, while Killer Mike waited in a Hollywood rehearsal space for El-P, his musical partner in the acclaimed rap duo Run the Jewels, the subject of politics and movies came up.

Killer Mike (born Mike Render), who in 2016 channeled his thoughtfully blistering verses on race and class into action by endorsing and campaigning with Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic presidential primaries, had just seen a trailer for the forthcoming “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

Jan. 6, 2017, 3:24 p.m.

A man arrives at the Oceti Sakowin Camp in Cannon Ball, N.D., in September. The Standing Rock protest drew indigenous people from all over the continent. (Doug McLean)

EARLY IN APRIL, a time when the frigid North Dakota plain is still quilted with snow, several dozen Native American men and women set out on horseback for a 25-mile ceremonial ride from the Standing Rock Sioux tribal headquarters in Fort Yates to the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers.

There they set up a small encampment of tepees on a site known by Native Americans as Sacred Stone. The camp was a protest against an encroaching crude oil channel, the Dakota Access pipeline, whose placement underneath the Missouri River threatened a key waterway and Sioux burial grounds.

At that moment, it might have strained the imagination to believe that nine months later, the camp would not only still be active but that it also would have become a full-fledged cultural touchstone.

A protest camp at Standing Rock dusted in snow. (Doug McLean)

Jan. 5, 2017, 1:58 p.m.

Cuban musician and educator Jesus Bello seeks to instill respect for traditional Cuban music in the country's young musicians and to promote it more aggressively in the U.S. (Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times)

CUBA'S ROBERTO GOMEZ HAD a single night free on his first trip to San Francisco, part of a short performance visit in his role as lead guitarist for singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, often referred to as “The Bob Dylan of Cuba,” and “The Poet of Havana.”

Gomez might have chosen to head to any number of clubs, restaurants or other social gathering places in one of the most vibrant and culturally rich cities in the U.S.

Instead, foremost on his mind immediately after the Varela concert performance was his search for a power cord to his laptop computer.